Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - 3 Nephi 27 - 4 Nephi Part 1 • Dr. Rebecca Clarke • October 21 - 27 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

How does a connection with God create a happy society? Join Dr. Rebecca Clarke as she explores the Savior’s visit to the Americas and the impact of that visit on the people and His invitation to live the gospel, connect with the Lord, and love each other to become the happiest people on earth.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43FRGerman: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43DEPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43ESYOUTUBEALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part I - Dr. Rebecca Clarke01:15 Bio of Dr. Rebecca Clarke04:15 Come, Follow Me Manual07:50 Research on happiness11:39 These of the episode15:42 Dr. Clarke shares a story about Guatemala21:08 The name of the Church26:58 A waterfall with a rainbow, a unicorn, and pink water31:35 Disputations, contention, and pride 34:01 3 Nephi 17:13-21 - An inclusio37:29 A wounded Jesus Christ41:24 Covenant relationship not covenant contract44:15 3 Nephi 27:20 - The commandment to repent48:17 Two stories about taking the sacrament53:32 3 Nephi 27:27 - The gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t a philosophy57:28 3 Nephi 28:1 - Treating people as individuals1:03:58 The nature of God’s love1:09:39  End of Part 1 - Dr. Rebecca ClarkeThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I'm here with John, by the way, who I describe as surely there could not be a happier co-host among all the co-hosts that had been created by the hand of God. John, I think that fits you perfectly. All except my name's not Shirley, but thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. John, do you know where that comes from? That's a fourth Nephi thing, I think. We're gonna be in the last few chapters of third Nephi today, and the only chapter of fourth Nephi.

John, you know the Book of Mormon as well as anyone. What comes to mind when you think of these chapters? You know what I love about this is we have these marvelous days with the Savior teaching the children of Lehi. Look at the impact when you have 2,500 personal witnesses of the resurrection and then all the multitudes that came the next day. What is the impact of that kind of testimony of Christ?

And the answer is fourth Nephi. There couldn't have been happier people. What a great connection, John. Third Nephi, the visits of Jesus, fourth Nephi in some of the opening verses, the happiest people ever created by the hand of God. That sequence can teach you a lot. John, we are with Dr. Rebecca Clark today, a phenomenal teacher. Rebecca, if we can call you Rebecca. Yeah. What are we looking

forward to today as we walk through these five chapters? This is what the whole Book of Mormon has been working toward. These chapters show us how they got there. We'll hear repeatedly the invitation, live the gospel of Jesus Christ to become like Him, to hear Christ Himself tell us what the gospel is. And when the people live it, they have the love of God in their hearts and they become deeply connected with God and Jesus Christ and with each other. We get to see the power of connection and the pain of disconnection. We're going to pay special attention to the things that we can do to have more happiness in our own lives and more

connection and love in our own relationships. This sounds like a great day compared to some of those lessons we did in Heleman John, the true crime lessons we did in Heleman. It's going to feel good to talk about, you know, happiness for a little while. John, Dr. Clark has never been on our podcast before. I bet you have a bio for her. I do. I'm excited to read this. Rebecca Walker Clark earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in marriage and family therapy from BYU. She served as a full-time missionary in Guatemala. She taught writing and rhetoric, part-time at BYU for almost

20 years, was named one of the 300 best professors in the United States by the Princeton Review. She earned her PhD from BYU in marriage, family, and human development with a research focus on the intersection between religion and healthy marital intimacy. She's published her scholarly research in peer-reviewed journals like Family Relations Review of Religious Research and the Journal of Religion and Health. However, Rebecca's crowning accomplishment, according to her mom, is being on the Follow Him podcast or the Hank and John show. Oh, Ardeth.

Ardeth Walker, thank you for listening to the Hank and Jojo. And she was so excited when I told her that I was asked to be a guest, she basically jumped out of her chair. I was on the phone with her and I could hear her so happy, almost like screaming with happiness. Thanks for the invitation. I'm really excited to be here. We're glad that you're here.

Oh, I'm so glad she's listening. Rebecca has taught in the Family Science Department at UVU, now teaches the Eternal Family Class in the BYU Religion Department. She's married to Sam. They are the parents of four children. Eliza, who's married to Matt. Emmy, who's married to Cooper.

Owen and Christian. She enjoys reading, cooking, and growing flowers in her garden, and being on the Hank and John show. So we are so happy to have you. Thank you for being with us. We feel very blessed to have you with us today. And Ardeth, we love you. Yes we do. Let's read from the Come Follow Me manual. It starts this way.

The teachings of Jesus Christ are much more than a beautiful philosophy to ponder. They are meant to inspire us to become like Him. The book of 4th Nephi shows just how completely the Savior's gospel can change people. Following Jesus' brief ministry, centuries of contention between the Nephites and the Lamanites come to an end. Two nations known for dissension and pride became one, the children of Christ, and they began to have all things in common among them. The love of God did dwell in the hearts of the people, and there could not be a happier

people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. This is how the Savior's teachings changed the Nephites and the Lamanites. How are they changing you? What a great introduction. I can already feel the power of this lesson. With that, Rebecca, how do you want to start? I am thrilled to be able to talk about this topic with you today.

I'd love the Come Follow Me manual. That first sentence about the teachings of Jesus Christ being more than just a beautiful philosophy to ponder, I believe that with all of my heart. All of my work and research and teaching about religion and relationships, leads me to that same conclusion that when we live those teachings, the teachings of Jesus Christ, they will make our lives better and happier. We will focus a lot on application on how the doctrine and teachings of Christ can change our lives and relationships.

The chapters are laid out in a great way for application. We get to see people learn more about the nature of Jesus Christ, about His gospel, about His relationship with us, His love for the people, and therefore for us as well. When the people live the gospel, they're the happiest they can be. So we're going to go chronologically through the chapters. But before we jump in, Hank, I noticed that you've written a book on happiness, Be Happy, Simple Secrets to a Happy Life.

I'm excited to have you share some of those secrets with us today. I don't know the secrets yet, so you'll have to share them with all of us. Rebecca, I gotta tell you, speaking of mothers, the book sold dozens of copies, mostly to my mother. Well-reviewed, as a lot of stars. I wrote a book called, How to Be Totally Miserable,

which shows what a horrible person I am. It says, well, actually we should focus on being happy. I'm glad to be talking to such experts on this topic. We're gonna have a lot of fun. We do have a lot of happiness experts on this topic. We're going to have a lot of fun. We do have a lot of happiness here on Follow Him. We're fans. We know that lots of our deepest questions center around connection and relationships. We come hardwired wanting to belong and to be loved.

My youngest son, who's now 14, was just about three years old when I was on the phone on the first day of summer break. I was telling a friend that I was going to take my kids out to lunch to celebrate the first day of summer. Christian stood there in front of me, eyes locked on me while I was wrapping up the phone conversation. When I hung up, he asked me with a sense of such longing and hope, is I one of your kids? When I told him, yes, you are one of my kids, he was so happy. Not only was he happy that we would get to go to a restaurant, which was a treat for us in our family, but he knew for sure that he was part of our family, was soaking in all of that security and love and peace and connection that that meant for him, that that relationship meant for him. To start, I said we'd go chronologically, but I do want to look at the end from the beginning. Again, my background is in

social science. I'm going to tell you about some cool research and therapeutic practices throughout our lesson today. But I want to start with some research on happiness. These two ideas can guide our discussion today. Happiness researchers from Yale have found that people are not very good at predicting what will make them happy, which might be one of the reasons we all aren't feeling happier, because we want to feel happy. which might be one of the reasons we all aren't feeling happier, because we want to feel happy. Some scholars think that we might still carry with us remnants of our evolutionary past as we try to seek happiness.

So relying on behaviors that are no longer useful. There was a time in our past when hoarding or consuming would have been a matter, for example, of life or death, Or having power or status over someone else could mean that if push came to shove, we could shove harder. Humans tend to still think that we will achieve happiness through things like unbridled consumption, hoarding wealth, validation on social media, or getting fame, gaining power in some of these ways, or doing excessive things like binge watching TV. But researchers have explained that these pursuits make us exhausted, unhealthy, lonely. Humans aren't the best predictors at what makes us happy. The second cool piece of research is that there was a remarkable study done at Harvard. They conducted the longest-running study on human happiness and the results are just

in as of about a year ago. It has followed participants since 1938. The researchers looked at all sorts of factors that are related to happiness and well-being. Things like health, wealth, fame, status, things that you would think could make us happy, where people lived, their employment, opportunities, and so on. They found that the factor that had the strongest association with happiness and well-being over the course of a lifetime was the quality of people's relationships. was the quality of people's relationships. We see this evidence of the power of relational quality, of that connection between relational quality and happiness in 4th Nephi as well.

I would like to spot read for you some of the terms used to describe the happiest people. And it's really neat to think about how connective and relationship-based they are. From 4th Nephi says the people were baptized, converted, there was no contention, all things in common, no rich or poor, bond or free, or other man-made distinctions. They were married. They met together often. The love of God was in their hearts. They were one. These are all rich terms of connection. And most of the descriptors of the happiness of the people in 4th Nephi, most of those are focused on the quality of their relationships with God and with each other. After the 200 years of happiness, when the

people stop living the gospel at the end of 4th Nephi, we get to see the disconnection when they stop being happy. And this can be instructive for us today as well. When they go from happy to unhappy, these are the terms used to describe the people. Pride, costly apparel, find things of the world, goods no more in common, divided into classes, get gain, Satan to get hold upon their hearts, exercise power and authority over, cast them into prison, seek to kill. The thesis of our lesson today is that living the gospel of Jesus Christ helps us enter into connection with God and with each other. And those relationships are going to be what makes heaven heaven. And we can have some of that heaven on earth if we will do the things that the people did

in third and fourth Nephi. When we lose that, we drift toward division and isolation. Wow hang on a second let me gather my thoughts because I am loving this. That exercise power and authority nothing will kill relationships like that. We sometimes are drawn to that sort of as a knee-jerk reaction we might get scared of disconnection and so we enter into, maybe I can control. I'm going to control this to a healthy relationship. We don't come knowing necessarily how really to be connected.

Our parents teach us that, but more importantly, the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that. I love what you said there, Rebecca, and it reminded me of Elder Holland up in Rexburg in 2014 gave a talk about happiness. I loved this statement. The best chance for being happy is to do the things that happy people do. And you just gave us point by point what they were doing in fourth Nephi, which resulted in surely there could not be happier people. Elder Holland continued, live the way happy people live, walk the path that happy people walk, and your

chances to find joy in unexpected moments, to find peace in unexpected places, to find the help of angels when you didn't even know they knew you existed, improves exponentially. When I was writing that book you mentioned, Rebecca, that was a major takeaway. That happiness and social circle are twins. It is all about relationships. And you're right, we don't think it is. When I say so and so has been so successful, our automatic thoughts don't go to relationships.

They go to, oh, he's successful. He must have a big house. He must have nice cars. But that's not where happiness comes. That's not where success really comes. If I was going to say, John is so successful, it's in my mind. He has incredible relationships, friends and family surrounding him. Yeah, we see Christ toward the end of his visit and he's telling the Nephite disciples,

you and the people after you are going to have 200 years of happiness and great relationships. And then he starts to forecast how they'll lose it. And the first thing he says is that they will sell me for silver and gold anytime we put things essentially in front of relationships, be that our employment, our important cars, or cool costly suits of apparel, we are selling ourselves short. We're reaching after things that moth and dust can corrupt, things that will go away. It really is about relationships. Tender to me, but I'd like to share this, how important relationships are and foundational they are to our happiness and to our ideas of heaven. I lost my brother about nine months ago. It was a heart attack and it was out of the blue.

When I think of heaven, I don't think of what job will I have or what title might I have earned or what harp might I be playing. It's all about who I'll be with. It's all about those connections. Our connections matter and they don't just matter to us in the eternities. They matter to us right now. We get to see in these chapters this beautiful guidance from Jesus Christ. He emulates how to be in relationship, how to be connected. And then he encourages us to stay connected to him and to be connected with each other. We long for that connection. When we're young, it's a matter of survival. When we're older, it's a matter of our happiness. I'd been in Guatemala for 10 weeks on my mission when my quiet and beloved trainer from Wisconsin was transferred. I had clung to her. She was my lifeline, helped me

stay sane and adjust to all of these new surroundings and situations and everything. At the Change Conference, I found myself with my second companion, who was a gregarious sister from Honduras, who spoke no English. Hermano Martinez and I rode home on the crowded bus as she chatted with everyone around us in her rapid Spanish while I sat in total silence, feeling more and more despair as we were traveling downhill and I thought, this is getting worse and worse. I'm sinking. I was unable to understand the language around me and felt more and more isolated. When we got to our cinder block apartment, I stood in front of her and communicated in my

frustrated and clumsy Spanish, that side of the room is yours and this side is mine. And then I started to cry because my new companion was going to speak Spanish and only Spanish and I felt so alone. I felt so isolated. Hermana Martinez knew I was crying about my beloved trainer being gone because I didn't really want her to take my trainer's place. I looked down at her feet out of shame. Instead of ignoring me or backing away from my rudeness and my hurt, she reached out to me and wiped the tears from my face with her thumbs, saying, Okay, when I think of Christ-like acts that I've been the recipient of throughout my life, I often go back to that simple moment. She didn't know me well enough to love me for me, and I was not being very lovable in

that moment. But she reached out to me in love and connection. She had the love, I'm sure of it, of God in her heart. We see Christ doing that, reaching out to people who aren't particularly lovable. We see the father of the prodigal son run to his misguided son to embrace him. We see people and we experience people who are learning how to love and who reach out to each other in love, like we get to see in our scriptures today and like we have all around us. Armando Martinez ended up being one of my favorite and most fun companions. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of connection. Through it, we can learn how to more fully connect with Jesus Christ

and with each other. Years ago, I read something in the paper. I don't know if either of you remember I read something in the paper. I don't know if either of you remember George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush, but she was going to speak at Wellesley for a graduation. It was an all girls college and some in the student body from what I understood were saying that Barbara didn't have a degree. Should we be recognizing her? But she came and exactly what you were talking about, relationships and happiness. This was so profound it made its way into the Provo Daily Herald. This is what she said, while urging the graduates to pursue professional careers if they so chose Mrs. Bush warned, at the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal.

You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent. What you think brings happiness might have been those things. I passed one more test. I won another verdict. I closed another deal. And Jesus will actually time not spent in a relationship. This is something Joseph Smith taught quite a bit. He said, friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism. He was talking to a group of men. He said, friendship is like Brother Turley in his blacksmith shop, welding iron to iron.

A lot of us know Section 130 130 John, I bet you could quote it to me, the same sociality which exists among us here, talking about Earth, will exist among us there. Heaven, only it will be coupled with eternal glory. It'll be relationships even better. Sounds like relationships on steroids. I'll never forget it. I was in a college class, an accounting class down in St. George in the university there. My teacher, Nate Staley, one of the best teachers I had throughout my entire college career. A student in our class, I think his name was James, he came in a little bit late from a

break. It was a small class and Dr. Staley said, what's going on James? And he said, well my dad is here. He showed up. He was hoping to go to lunch but that's okay. I told him I couldn't make it. This Dr. Staley, he stopped the whole class. He said, you leave right now and go to lunch with your dad. And we were all kind of, wow. He told us about he lost his dad when he was 14 years old in a farming accident. He said, I would give anything to go have a meal with my dad. So you go right now. It was a profound lesson. I think I remember it more than anything. I'm so good at accounting, I became a religion professor. He taught me much more than accounting that day. It's really cool. I think we get to see lessons about relationships all around us.

Chapter 27 in 3rd Nephi opens with what looks like an administrative issue in the church, but I see more and more as a relationship issue. Christ is talking to the 12 Nephite disciples here and their question is what to call the church. To be honest, before President Nelson redirected us on the name of the church, I never thought about it being an issue, even though we have this counsel from Jesus Christ himself in this chapter.

Being a Mormon was great. I thought that was just fine. I was happy with that. But I love the way that President Nelson reminded us that the name of the church is an important matter because we can learn something about the nature of Christ here, I think, and his relationship to us when we look at the full name of the church. We're going to look at the name of the restored church in our day as revealed to Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants. It's in section 115 verse 4 and John, if you could read that for us.

John. For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Julie. Now, I want you to look at this for a second. Do you notice anything about the capitalization in any of the words in the title of the name of the church? V is capitalized, church is capitalized, Jesus Christ is capitalized, and Latter-day is capitalized, and saints is capitalized. That capitalization of V is, of course, a departure from a grammatical norm in a title. But because that's how the Lord revealed it to Joseph Smith, we keep capitalizing it. In our style guides and in our scriptures and things, we capitalize the.

And we know that the emphasizes the singularity of it. There can only be one of something if it's the the largest city in the United States is New York. I love the fact that it's the Church of Jesus Christ. So we have that first of and that's beautiful and we're going to talk about that even more. But we have that second of right there that is sometimes I leave it off of Latter-day Saints. The Savior Himself put us in the name of His Church. The name of the church contains the components necessary for our salvation and exaltation. It indicates where our most important focuses should be on our relationships. First, we need Jesus Christ and His authority

and power for our salvation. And second, for exaltation, we need each other. President Nelson has talked about this. He said salvation is an individual matter. So that has to do with our personal relationships with Jesus Christ. And exaltation is a family matter. That has to do with our relationships with each other. We literally need each other. And I love the way the full name of the restored church is focused on relationships. I really love that. Rebecca, a lot of people, I don't think know that in 1830 the name of the church was the Church of Christ. And then 1834, the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Then in 1838, here what you've shown us, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In my mind, I see a bit of a conversation going on there. What's the name of the church? Well, it's yours, Lord. Okay. What about you? Okay, it's yours, Lord. Okay. What about you? Okay, it's ours. And in 1838, the Lord says, how about it be all of us? Chris Visiting the Kirtland Temple, a lot of people look up and say, how come it says the Church of the Latter-day Saints? And you have to go through that development because when they put that up in

the Kirtland Temple, they called it the Church of Latter-day Saints. I like, too, what I've heard our friend, Brad Wilcox say, who's been on the podcast, he says, we want our young people to get to the point where they're not saying, this is my mom's church, my dad's church, my grandpa's church, this is my church. I love the two ofs in there. I'm really glad, Rebecca, that you pointed those out. It's his and it's ours. It's my church. It's His church and it's my church. If it was mine, Rebecca and John, I would probably say the Church of Jesus Christ of really trying to be Latter-day Saints. Latter-day Saints, I know. Calling ourselves saints kind of sounds like, well, I'm working

on it. Really trying. Really such a stretch. You know, and we do, we see the gentleness of Christ in including, allowing us to be a part of that. It's really a beautiful thing how he relates to us, even in our weakness, and I feel the very same way. It's worth noting here in chapter 27, even though Christ talks about the church and the gospel as two separate things.

So we have the church, the people who make it up, and then we have the gospel probably best defined as Christ's teachings. He indicates that the church has to be totally connected to the gospel to have God's power in it. What a great gift that is to us that is not based on our own best ideas, that it is of Jesus Christ. We read in verse 10, If it so be that the church is built upon my gospel, then will the Father show forth his own works. Part of what makes these people so happy in 4th Nephi is this idea that they are not trying to change the terms or create the terms, making their own best guesses at what will bring salvation, exaltation, or true happiness. They're not trying to make a church

and Christ tells them please don't according to their own best ideas because we know that our own best ideas often fall short. Fun quick story about our ideas maybe missing the mark. Years ago, we were hiking with our kids when they were little. My second daughter, Emmy, was about four and we finally made it to our destination, which was a small waterfall. Emmy stood there with her hands on her hips glaring at this waterfall. My husband,

Sam, asked her, aren't you happy that we made it to the waterfall?" She said, no, I would be happy if there was a rainbow and a unicorn and if the water was pink and if there was a little cloud over the top of it. It's very specific. So what would have made her happy in that moment would have been to see an episode of My Little Pony, like come to life up Rock Canyon, something with a little more flash than what was there. Christ has told us that we are better off and we're going to be happier when we recognize that we aren't the ones in charge of setting the

terms because Heavenly Father can see so much more clearly and further than we can. Elder Holland spoke about our participation in church, and he talked about this idea of becoming better, not according to our own ideas, because those are often limited, but according to our Heavenly Father's limitless vision. He says, Come as you are, a loving Father says to each of us, but then adds, Don't plan to stay as you are. We smile and remember that God is determined to make more of us than but then adds, don't plan to stay as you are. We smile and remember that God is determined to make more of us than we thought we could be. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us a chance to become more than we naturally would. One of the things I appreciate about the gospel

of Jesus Christ is that I'm not limiting myself when I participate in it. I'm not limiting myself to my own ideas, whatever they might be of goodness or happiness at any given time. It's based on eternal ideas. Rebecca, if I could ask you a quick question since you're our relationship expert. When the Savior comes in 3527, they're fasting and praying for him to arrive. And he does. He had told them if they really needed him and he would be there and he is. And they said, Lord, we need to know the name of the church.

This is verse three, for there are disputations among the people concerning this thing. That seems to be his first concern in verse four. Why is it that the people are murmuring and disputing because of this thing? It reminded me of back in 3511, John, you remember this, one of the first things he tells them is the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil who is the father of contention. He says, I don't want any more contention. Now that was specific to baptism. So maybe they thought, okay, no more fighting about baptism, but

we can fight about everything else. He comes back and they are murmuring and disputing over this. Why do we murmur and dispute? Can you teach me how to not murmur and dispute? Especially over things like, it's not a small thing, but I can see the Lord saying, really, you're murmuring and disputing over this thing? If we look back in chapter 26 verse 21, the very end of 3 Nephi chapter 26 verse 21, it says, and they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the Church of Christ. That seems to indicate to me that they had this and then they lost it. I wonder about this little interaction here.

I wonder about these disputations. I see the gentleness of Jesus Christ where he says, if you call the church in the name of a man, they were maybe doing it according to the pattern, or maybe this is an editorial issue and maybe they weren't, but there's evidence that maybe they were doing it correctly. Christ comes and someone changes it. Somebody is starting to think, I think I've got a really gangbusters idea here. We're going to call him Mormons or whatever it was, or Moses is the example that Christ uses. I wonder if it was one of them who was trying to say, maybe we could name it after

me. And then in these verses, it's so beautiful to me the way that Jesus Christ does not call any particular individual out by saying, you started these disputations, Jehoshaphat, and you can't call the church after yourself. I'm not going to make it so that your name is recorded forever in Scripture as being the guy who wanted to have the church named after him. Disputations, we see it in the downfall of the people in 4th Nephi. It starts with pride. It really does. And this disconnection starts with seeing ourselves as more important than someone else. You know, we've got a better idea. We're separate from you. I'm better than you. It should be my name that the church is called after. Our attitudes are so incredibly powerful and important, especially when we talk about happiness. We're going to talk a little bit later about how we choose happiness,

and we often can make that a choice. Disputations come from putting ourselves above another person. Rebecca, I need to know how to not have any contention in my marriage and in my relationships. I also need you to teach me how to have my children not have any contention with each other. I'm sure this is a very simple thing for you to fix, right? It is. This has a really easy answer, Hank, so I'm glad you asked the question.

We're going to look really carefully at that very point because when we see the happiest people in fourth Nephi, we see the quality or characteristic about their relationships that is mentioned most often is that they don't have contention. They say the scriptures list that four times. There was no contention. There was no contention. This is a big deal. A lot of times it really is about how we are seeing the other person. We're going to talk about some really cool ways

how we see each other in relationships and how Christ sees us. Okay, I'm excited. Those of you who are listening who have zero contention in your life, you don't have to continue listening, but to every single other person, then we might wanna stay all the way through the end here

because I'm excited for that part. Yeah, that's gonna be a really fun part. So next, we've got the church named after Jesus Christ, and we've established that the church is to be based on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ teaches the gospel to the people in chapter 27. He's already done this, so he's doing it again. This is a repeat of what happened earlier in 3rd Nephi. The gospel recipe, we see that repeated so often in these chapters. It's really pretty impressive. I want to look carefully and dissect the key to happiness so that we can keep leaning into it because this is the good news right

here. We get to hear it from Him. The gospel is given to us so clearly and it's given to us using a literary device found in the Bible that places similar material at the beginning and the end of a work or a section and it's called inclusio. For example, it's tucked in between verses 13 and 21 and I'm going to read the opener and the closer so the book ends around what Christ is going to teach us. Verse 13 says, I have given unto you my gospel and this is the gospel which I have given unto you. Verse 21, I say unto you this is my gospel and ye know the things that ye must do in my church. He bookends this envelope of information, this packet of information, and it's so powerful, it's so loving to hear Christ Himself pronounce the good news. These verses are beautiful to read

straight through. I encourage listeners to do that with 3 Nephi chapter 27, verses 13 through 21. I want to highlight a handful of things. We really get to learn about the nature of Jesus Christ here, and we know that seeing and interacting and learning and knowing and loving Jesus Christ is what can change us, can change our behaviors more than a study of behavior can change our behaviors. Right up front as Christ begins to talk about His gospel, we see something important about His nature. He tells us, I came into the world to do the will of my Father. That's also, and not coincidentally, how Christ introduced Himself when He arrived the first time earlier in 3 Nephi. He says it here again, essentially, I am obedient to my Father in heaven.

Obedience has been called the first law of Heaven. We can approach this by saying, this is a recipe for happiness. This is not my own best ideas. This is Jesus Christ Himself telling us how we can be happy. Obedience is the first fork in the road. If we can't get that part together, it's hard to get the rest of it together. In fact, it reminds me of when my oldest daughter, Eliza, was learning how to drive. It was the first time she was attempting the freeway. We are on the on-ramp. She is getting up to freeway speeds, merging into traffic when she asks, so how strict are these lanes? And I thought, if we aren't obedient,

And I thought, if we aren't obedient, it's going to be hard to get anywhere. How strict. Pretty strict. Yeah, they're pretty important actually. Actually, this peace being obedient, this staying in the lane is pretty important. As Christ continues to unfold his gospel to us, we get to see more of his nature. And he gives a beautiful visual of Himself being lifted up on the cross by men. And this is a cruel lifting up. In 3 Nephi 27 verse 14, Christ says, And my father sent me that I might be lifted up on the cross, and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me. The result of that cruel lifting up is so loving. He is saying here that the reason he did it

was to draw all of us to him. We came to relate with us. He came to connect with us. This was not only out of obedience, but the result of that obedience was a relationship. Daniel Bersera says in this great little book, A Brief Theological Introduction to Third and Fourth Nephi, he has a really beautiful insight about this that I want to share. He says that the people in the Americas were looking forward to meeting a perfected Christ, a resurrected being like was taught in Alma, where not one hair of our heads will be lost

and everything will be restored to its perfect and proper frame. And this is the resurrected Christ they were looking forward to, a flawless Christ. And when he comes, he comes with evidence of his woundedness. One of the first things he does is he shows the people that he's been wounded. I see this lifting up of Christ, drawing us to him in at least two ways. First he's saying, I know life is going to hurt. Even if you're really, really good, you're gonna have people who argue with you, and good, you're going to have people who argue with you. And I know you're going to have contention from time to time. And these things that are really going to hurt, you are even going to experience unimaginable

loss and pain. But he's also saying, I overcame it. If you come to me, you can too." Then he tells us how the gospel, in verse 16, we're given the pattern of the gospel and it's very simple the way it appears in these chapters. It's repent, be baptized, endure to the end. We need to be willing to repent. We need to be willing to confront what is not the best in us. Part of the answer to why do we have contention is because the people that are around us aren't perfect. Guess what? Neither are we. We've got two pieces of this imperfect puzzle. But the more we're willing to repent, to confront the ego-driven parts of us, the more we reorient ourselves to God, the better it's going to be. And repentance is relational because it really is literally a turning to God.

In Daniel Bersera's book, he says, one hallmark of Christian discipleship is change, the persistent reorientation of the self toward God. And then we're supposed to be baptized. Our baptismal covenant is to enter into a relationship with God and with others. Baptism is relational because it's the mechanism through which we join God's family. And He's not the only member of the family. We have the people on the horizontal and the vertical axis there. Then we're supposed to be sanctified. When we see the recipe of the gospel repeated in these chapters, it says, repent, be baptized, and then it will say something a little different every time, enter to the end, be sanctified, receive the Holy Ghost,

become as a little child. That piece of the gospel means don't give up, don't stop. Keep on keeping on, keep on trying. If we do these things in verse 22, we read Christ's hope-filled words. If ye do these things, blessed are ye. This is an echo of that first lifting up. He says, for ye shall be lifted up at the last day. This is not a cruel lifting. He's talking about us being lifted up on account of his lifting up. He's talking about us being lifted up to God because He's shown us

the way. We are lifted up above all the pain and all of the loss because He's gone there first and He's conquered that. And that is the good news. We read in verse 27, Therefore what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am. That good news, that invitation is repeated over and over again in these chapters. It's like a drumbeat. It reminded me, Hank and Rebecca, of when we had

Brad Wilcox on the program and he talked about this covenant is a relationship. It's not a contract, it's not a box to be checked. It's a relationship that you begin. Being baptized is an event, but being born again is having access to the Savior's power through the atonement which is a really great way to think of it as an ongoing process that begins with baptism and then this sanctification that comes as you talked about. Rebecca, it seems that if someone really wants to understand what do we mean when we say gospel? Live the gospel? Love the gospel? What's the good news? You take that 13 through 21, take it out and go word by word through it. By

the end, a significant study of verses 13 through 21, you'll come away with, I know what the gospel is. The gospel is so simple and it's so complex that we could study it for our entire lives and never even scratch the surface of it. These are beautiful verses for the reason that you say, Hank. He is trying to make it so clear. We hear over and over that invitation, repent. If you lose your life, you'll find it. Maybe set aside the pieces and parts of you that you think are pretty awesome, but I'm telling you they're not. I'm gently asking you to set those down. You want to

go to the waterfall that looks like my little pony, but I've got something so much better and cooler for you. So repent, be willing to change. And then that baptismal covenant is so fascinating to me because it is vertical and it is horizontal. We talk about being part of God's family. We're looking to God and we're looking around us as well at those relationships that are really part of our refinement and part of the reason we participate in religion.

Christ teaches us the gospel and He tells us that we should go to His church and learn about His gospel with other people. He doesn't say, you know what, I've got this home study, you can just put on your headphones and learn about it on your own because you're the superstar student who can just take it on your own time, independent study style. We see in 4th Nephi when the people are happy, they're meeting together often to hear the word of the Lord, to pray, to fast. In fact, I want to talk about that for a little bit right now, that idea of the church being necessary, that the gospel is something that we're not being encouraged to go off and live on our own. I see something really invitational here from Jesus Christ and really useful.

3rd Nephi 27 verse 20, Now this is the commandment, repent all ye ends of the earth. And Hank and Rebecca, I love that we've talked about their pain can just mean continually turn back to god Improve not necessarily some huge sin. Yeah, just improve It's the most hopeful encouraging word in the christian vocabulary elder holland says repent all ye ends of the earth And come unto me. There's your faith in christ And be baptized in my name that you may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day." One time, you guys, I did a search for every time in the Book of Mormon I could find spotless, unspotted, and without spot. It was amazing because

it's on the title page and it's on the last page and it's the main thing that we can be cleansed by the Atonement of Christ, that's the outcome. We may stand spotless before God at the last day because we just keep on repenting. That's a really nice nutshell of the Gospel type verse. Can I mention something that I think makes people a little bit nervous? And that is back in verse 16 and 17. It's repent and be baptized. And you're thinking, I can do this. And then it's endure to the end. That makes it sound so, oh, I don't know if I can do that.

White knuckle it. Yep. How much tenacity do I have? I've looked up endure the etymology. If you go back to it, remain in. I like that. If you were to say, repent and be baptized and remain in that state of repenting and keeping your baptismal covenants and repent when you don't and try to keep them again and repent when you don't, remain in that state, that's enduring to the end. Maybe we just have the wrong idea in mind when we hear that phrase.

end. Maybe we just have the wrong idea in mind when we hear that phrase. I think that that's true. When we look in 4th Nephi, when we watch the people, their downfall, I had that same thought. You're repenting, you're entering into your relationships, you're keeping your covenants. It's a circle. You have to keep on keeping on. That's how I picture Endure is keep on keeping on because there was nothing different about the happy people in the first half of Forth Nephi and the second half except for they didn't do that. Keep on keeping on peace. They didn't do that endure Remain in that really is what it means is it's the great good fun of carrying on of Continuing in that space. That's what separates the people who are disconnected and fall away from happiness is there's a last time

presumably that they repent or think about their relationships. It starts to drift and they start to drift into thinking more about silver, gold, pride, power, all of these things that don't bring us happiness. And they don't course correct. Yeah, don't course correct. It's so gentle and it's so invitational and so filled with hope. Maybe, and dirty the end sounds scary, but can you commit to repenting every day? Well, that's the same thing. Try again tomorrow. And I guess you're right, Rebecca, they stopped trying in 4th Nephi at a certain point. They had rather do something else. Yeah.

And so Christ teaches us the gospel. Part of the trick of remaining in and enduring to the end is he tells us we should go to his church and learn about his gospel with other people. This is both a draw for us and also sometimes it can be a snag, this idea of we have to do this. Other people are going to be involved in some way in our spiritual development and growth. And wouldn't it be so much easier if I could worship in my own way and give my own talks to myself at

church and sacrament meeting, have it all be about me and what pleasant things I want to experience in here. And I could do things the right way. I could do things how they should be done. And yet, Christ says, sit shoulder to shoulder with other imperfect people. Come into communion and be part of that community. To begin talking about this, I want to share two sweet sacrament stories that I experienced recently, illustrate some of the blessing and value of a religious or a church experience. We visited my son-in-law and my daughter in California recently. In church on Sunday, I got to sit by a little boy named Oliver during sacrament meeting. I learned Oliver's name because his parents probably said his name to him maybe 25 times during the course of the meeting.

Oliver, sit down. Oliver, be quiet. Be quiet. Oliver, give that back. During the sacrament, Oliver got his cup of water and carefully stood up on his tiptoes between the benches, poured his water down the back of the man's shirt who was sitting right in front of us on the bench in front of us. The man looked back and glanced at Oliver, smiled at Oliver, huge smile, and the parents are quietly apologizing. And I thought, you know what? This is part of the beauty of it, of taking the sacrament together. The lovely brother was just smiling at Oliver, the wonderful family was trying to get through sacrament meeting with little kids. People were supporting each other in it, and you could just feel the love. That's how I think we can be on a more grown-up scale in our worship. We can be loving in a religious community. We can learn how to love. We can see that as people are learning, they can

feel the love, and we can too. The next week, we were back in our home ward and we had visitors. I could see my son Christian, who's 14, passing the sacrament to a visiting family a couple of benches ahead of us. Something was taking a long time. I couldn't see what it was, but I could see Christian standing there by the side of the bench beaming, smiling. After sacrament meeting, Christian told me that the little six-year-old daughter named Rose

had carefully selected the most full cup of water and then proceeded to drink half of it herself and then tried to give the other half to her doll. My son was so touched by this that she would want to share that blessing of the sacrament. Christian said the sacrament was a happy thing for Rose. She was learning that in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you share that happiness with everyone around you. She did. She shared it with her doll. She shared it with Christian, who shared it with me. Rose was learning about love and the sacrament. Oliver was learning about love and the sacrament. Oliver's victim was learning about love and the sacrament.

We're all learning about it. It's powerful to be able to learn about it together. Being in a community is useful. It can be instructive. We all have weaknesses and strengths, and sometimes those are really apparent, sometimes they're not. But as you participate in church,

as you grow up in it, you disabuse yourself of the notion that anyone really has it together, really all that well. And there's sacredness and beauty in that. And I think that's part of what can help us endure to the end, that we see people coming back to it. We know that our neighbors and friends are showing up again, trying to take the sacrament as perfectly as they can manage, that we keep showing up as well as we can manage to. That is where we can learn to love in some really meaningful ways. And Jesus Christ didn't want us to miss out on that. He didn't give us an independent study option. I know there can be also pain in that as well. That participation in a religious community can have some pain to it.

When we bump into those weaknesses, the church is true, the people are not. That can help us remember to not give up when we run into those imperfections. But I love it's an old essay from the 1980s from Eugene England titled Why the Church is as True as the Gospel. And his argument is as much as there's saving power in the perfection of Christ's teachings, there's saving power in the imperfections that we find in the church and that we have to grapple with. And I'd like to quote from his essay. He writes, there's constant encouragement, even pressure to be active and thus to have a calling and thus to have to grapple with relationships and management with other people's ideas and wishes, their

feelings and failures, to attend classes and meetings and to have to listen to other people's sometimes misinformed or prejudiced notions and to have to make some constructive response, to be subject to leaders and occasionally to be hurt by their weaknesses and blindness, and then to be made a leader and find that we too, with all the best intentions, can be weak and blind and unrighteous. I love that because I resonate with that. Then there's another great saying that the church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners. And once we realize that we're all there to be healed, even us, that can help us participate in better ways. Because the church gives us a chance to live the gospel. It gives us a chance to love one another, forgive one another,

hold each other's kids, teach other people's kids to minister, to do all those things that aren't very powerful if they're left in our imagination. Like the Come Follow Me authors talked about, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just a philosophy, it's something we should live. My research focus is on religion and relational flourishing. I want to share some outcomes of participation in religious spaces. Tyler VanderWeele at Harvard studies what makes people happy and helps them live well. He has such interesting work, and he's published studies on religious service attendance and found that attending church is related to lowering depression,

lowering suicide rates, lowering divorce rates. Attending religious services improves physical health, parenting practices, it improves marriage satisfaction. The best data from the US and Europe suggest that being part of a religious community has a stronger association over time with more positive outcomes than all other social factors including being married, time spent with friends or family, or time spent in other communities.

Other forms of community life and relationships do contribute to healthy outcomes but nothing really touches religious participation. Being spiritual is good. Being religious is good, but being both spiritual and religious is exponentially powerful. Two plus two is more than four in this case. When Christ says in 3 Nephi chapter 27 verse 27, we hear him instruct his followers and he says this, Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily, I say unto you, even as I am." All of this instruction he's giving the people is him saying, this is how you become like me. I've showed you how to do it. I've showed you how to love. I've showed you how to be loving when

people are not loving. I've showed you how to love imperfect people and you are going to get to take these gospel lessons out of the theoretical realm and practice them in a community of living, broken, imperfect, often striving believers, he says, in my church. We had Dr. Melissa Inouye with us a few months ago now, and sadly she passed away after we recorded. She said, sometimes as a people we're too hard on ourselves. If our church community isn't perfect or we have problems or we don't feel united, we throw up our hands and say, it's not true, it's not working. When something is hard, it's a feature, not a bug of reality and the kind of life we chose under the plan of salvation.

She said, Jesus said, love your enemies. What better place to find enemies than in your local wars and learn how to love them. John, you said lots of enemies, one convenient location. Such a funny moment. I don't have any enemies, Jesus. He's, well, that's why I gave you the church because now you have lots that you can learn to love. I love it. I feel like this is what chapter 27 is all about. It's about the nature of Jesus Christ.

He is love itself, an invitation to become like Him. He's not hiding the way from us. He's trying to make it as simple as possible. That's beautiful. Rebecca, we've had you for a while now. We've been looking at this one chapter 27. We've touched a little bit on fourth Nephi, but let's keep moving forward. Tell us about third Nephi 28. Chapter 28, we get to see the three Nephites come to be. They kind of nominate themselves. Can we do this really, really neat thing?

Now I'm excited to hear about what you guys know about them. My mom might think that you guys are them. Are you guys the three Nephites? John could be. He has been around a long time and he does not look old. Oh yes, I do. I've got the improve my appearance thing slid all the way to the end on this recording. In chapter 27, we learned about the nature of Christ and how to become more like Him.

And then in this chapter, I see a lot of relational lessons about how Christ loves us. First of all, in 28, it opens in this beautiful way. Could one of you read 3rd Nephi chapter 28 verse 1? Yeah, I'll read. And it came to pass when Jesus had said these words, He spake unto His disciples one by one, saying unto them, What is it that ye desire of me, after that I am gone to the Father? I love that one by one element. It's so like Christ. This is a practice that we can use and apply in our relationships. We can, as much as possible, as teachers or parents or friends or whatever our relationship is, we can treat people like the individuals they are, rather than part of a monolithic group. There's interesting data that show that if you give a compliment to a group, like, this is

the best class, you guys are great. People more often than not assume you're talking about everyone, but them, they will answer that. So if you have a rowdy primary class, try to say everyone's names, if you can get a word in edgewise. Or if you're a parent, try to look each child in the eye at least once a day and really make a connection. That one by one is really powerful. Then he asks the disciples one by one that great question, what is it that you desire of me? We see verses later that the three Nephites don't dare speak their desire and Christ says, it's okay, I know what you want. I can read your minds, essentially. But it's really wise for us in our relationships, because we don't have that power. And Christ has that power and still asks the question. But to ask people to find out where they are, to map them, that's a really powerful thing in relationships, to try to understand where someone else is.

How are you feeling about this? When do you feel most loved in our marriage? When do you feel most loved as one of our kids? Those types of questions can yield really, really profound answers. We see in the scriptures this pattern of being asked questions, of people in the scriptures being asked questions that are really thought-provoking. We can model our relationships on asking questions like what happens in the scriptures. John Tanner had an article in the Ensign years ago about the Lord's questions. He pointed out that whenever the Lord asks a question in scripture, we can apply it to ourselves, like to Adam, where art thou? To the twelve in Jerusalem, whom say ye that I am, to Peter, lovest thou me, to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter?" And the interesting thing

is these questions aren't being asked because God really needs an answer. It's so that we can go through the process of finding out where we are, how we feel about God, we can offer the same pattern to the people that we love, that shows love, that we care to find out. I picture Christ asking me that question, what is it that you desire, and how I might answer. I know basically what I desire. I'm answering that question every day with how I live. The desires of our hearts have power. We're told in the Doctrine and Covenants that we'll be judged according to our works and the desires of our hearts. The interesting thing is if we're

judged by something, we can only be judged by something that we can control to some degree, that we can change. Elder Bednar explained that every appetite, desire, propensity, and impulse of the natural man may be overcome by and through the atonement of Jesus Christ. One example from my life where I had desires that needed to be elevated was when I got my mission call. My desires were good-ish, good. I wanted to serve a mission. This is back in the day and I was 21. I felt like I was sort of doing the world a favor by agreeing to bless everyone with my missionary work. I wanted to serve a mission to Sweden.

That was my desire. Those were my terms. At the time, if I'm remembering correctly, I was able to fill out on my mission papers that I had Swedish ancestry, that I wanted to learn a language, Swedish, even that I had a preference for serving in Sweden. I thought heaven and I had come to a key understanding on this point. So before my call even came, I went and purchased a new mission outfit, my first mission outfit. It was a red skirt and a white blouse. It was darling. I knew that I was going to look really cute

in my red skirt and white shirt in Sweden. I got called to Guatemala. The only things I really knew about Guatemala was that it was going to be much hotter than Sweden. I knew there were going to be way more spiders there than I was going to be comfortable with. I didn't think my outfit was going to look nearly as darling. This rocked me so much that I actually had to reassess how much I wanted to really serve this mission. Before I left the MTC, I finally let go of my desires for

how I had wanted it to all play out and focused on my better desires to try to serve in the Lord's way. Guatemala turned out to be so perfect for me. For me, I think Heavenly Father knew I needed Guatemala to help me elevate my desires, to focus outwardly and on people rather than on my outfit. We can elevate our desires. In terms of application, I love how the Come Follow Me manual, they mention that hymns can often express elevated desires, and their example is more holiness, give me. When we're in a moment where we might need to elevate our desires or make a decision with our clearest perspective, we could sing or say those words to ourselves.

I'm going to do the first two lines of the second verse of more holiness, give me, to kind of illustrate the power of this suggestion. You picture yourself in a moment where you need to make a decision and take the highest road possible. Picture yourself saying these words, more gratitude give me, more trust in the Lord, more pride in His glory, more hope in His word. I think chapter 28 teaches us some really neat things about the nature of our desires teaches us some really neat things about the nature of our desires and the nature of Christ's love for us and what he wants for us. He wants us to act out of the best in ourselves and it's really neat to look at the desires of the three Nephites. Daniel Bursera wrote in his book about the different motivations for

being obedient that we see in thirdrd and 4th Nephi, and why we're obedient really matters. There are less developed and more developed reasons to be obedient. And this comes into play in our relationships. And that's what attracted me to this idea. It matches up with theories of moral development in social sciences. The first level of moral development is that we're motivated out of a fear of punishment. This is where we start as young kids. It's a fine way to start our lives and our moral development and our reasons for being obedient. But we think and live mainly in terms of doing what is good for us of avoiding punishment. In chapter three, we see the Nephites repent out of

fear. This is that lower level development. Then there's a second level of moral development with a slightly more noble incentive, and that we're driven or motivated to be obedient out of wanting to get a righteous reward. It's a pro-social reason to interact with other people, to be obedient, but it is limited. It's transactional. This is important because this can come into play in our relationships. We know the rules and it will work within the rules. If I do X, I will get Y. If I put my mission papers in, I will get a call to Sweden. It's a little limited and people can get stuck in this and think meritably if you're basing your marriage relationship, for example, on a transaction. You give me this, I'll give you that. You can see how

that's a more brittle way to interact. The third level of moral development is the most mature way to live and it's the highest level of moral development. It's the best reason to be obedient, the best reason to have relationships with people, and it's just to act out of love. Jesus declares these three disciples, the three Nephites, more blessed because of their desires in verse 9 to bring the souls of men unto me. So their desire for obedience and doing good comes from the love of God and for others. They're not scared of punishment or thinking this is a transactional expectation they need to fulfill. They want to serve because they possess a Christ-like love. That's how God wants us to interact with Him. He wants our wholehearted

affirmation. He wants us to come to Him out of the best in ourselves, to love Him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength, and love each other like that as well. He's not acting on a transactional level with us. We can start our relationship there with Him so that we can learn how to be obedient, and we kind of learn how that works. But He doesn't want it to stop there. He doesn't want us to end in a place of, this is a cosmic vending machine, that that's what God is. He wants us to grow beyond that into something far better. We are at our best, I think we learn in this chapter, when we're acting out of love, when we're motivated in our relationships and in our obedience out of a desire to be loving. Here's Job saying, though he slay me yet, while I trust in him. And that's just a level that I'm not at yet, but I love that example.

I'm so grateful the Lord didn't say, wrong, wrong, wrong. That's a good desire too. That's a good desire. It's possible to have different good desires and to be recognized that way. I've always been grateful for that, that he complimented them on their good desires, even though they were different. Yeah. I think there's something really profound to that, that we can take into our relationships, understanding that there are different ways to go about things that are legitimate and good. If we're expecting our partner or our kids to do it our way, it's my way or the highway. That's not what's being modeled here. It's this idea of one by one and their righteous desires were all honored. I think that's really impressive. Coming up in part two of this episode, and I'll never forget one class in particular, I was rushing out the door to get to school on time.

I was inconvenienced by one of our cars not working and Sam was scheduled to have fixed it and it wasn't done. As I left, I said some sharp words to Sam and I punctuated my comments by a really immature, newlywed move and I slammed the door behind me.